I think I’d quibble with the author’s calculations. He used a Komodo Dragon as his base for calculating their metabolism, but if they’re related to carnosaurs then he probably should have gone with an ostrich or something.

No, I immediately thought of our large feral cat population, but then I decided that if it was doubtful that Kaiju would be able to stomach Republicans, there’s no way that they’d stoop to consuming cats, which are like small furry Tea Party members already.

I’ve only seen the trailers so far, but somehow, the idea of giant sea aliens and equally huge giant robots beating the crap out of each other is more reminiscent of Neon Genesis Evangelion than Godzilla to me. Especially considering that there’s a multitude of the creatures out there. Several other elements in this film seem similar to NGE as well…

The terms “Republican”, “Rethuglican”, and similar are hereby invalidated, outlawed, and declared terminally unfashionable. The new and improved term to use is Goober, following the lead of the Washington Post.

“The Goobers in the Senate blocked another presidential appointment today.”

Well kieran
1) The pilots aren’t depressed teenagers
2) There’s no metaplot involving existential questions
3) It’s self contained
4) They fight monsters, not abstract “angels”
5) IT’S FUN and when you leave the theater you’ll feel like you had a good time instead of wanting to kill yourself like NGE does.

The movie has everything I want in a flick—big-ass sea monsters, big-ass robots, and big-ass robots fighting big-ass sea monsters. Pacific Rim is undoubtedly the no-holds-bar-over-the-top-action-flick-who-gives-damn-about-plot-or-character-development-o-yeah-it-has-Ron-Motherf’n-Perlman kind of movie we all need.

Republicans would definitely cause food born illness of some sort from all the rot at their core so maybe we can feed it Nickleback and Avril Lavigne fans, they won’t be hard to catch being brain dead and all.

it’s an entertaining film. Definitely go see it. Gets right into the thick of things. And the scientists sound like they’re practicing for At the Mountains of Madness. Silly boards covered in numbers and everything.

KevinKat,
And for Idris Elba, of course :)
I tried to convince my friend to go see the movie with me, but she saw the trailer and didn’t find it interesting. Might go by myself, since I haven’t been to the movies in a while.

The movie has everything I want in a flick—big-ass sea monsters, big-ass robots, and big-ass robots fighting big-ass sea monsters. Pacific Rim is undoubtedly the no-holds-bar-over-the-top-action-flick-who-gives-damn-about-plot-or-character-development-o-yeah-it-has-Ron-Motherf’n-Perlman kind of movie we all need.

If Kaiju are anything like sharks, then their dietary selection is heavily biased towards fat content (caloric density), not flavor or health. I think the GOP/TP base will be in demand by the monster set. Just tell them it’s their patriotic duty to defend against an alien incursion. Excuse me, wrong dialect, “It’s an invashun by them dam furriners, bring yer weppins”… Though if history is any guide, most of them will immediately file for deferments and call for government assistance.

Torchwood fans may get a kick out of seeing Burn Gorman in a featured role.

I enjoyed the heck out of Pacific Rim. It’s definitely an homage, not a ripoff, of the huge-monsters-attacking and the huge-robots-fighting-huge-monsters genres. Some of the the kaiju in particular were clearly influenced by monsters from the old Gamera films.

Del Toro really loves those movies. Rather than insulting them and not taking them seriously, he tried to take the things he loved about them when he was a kid and make a movie an adult could enjoy, with a quality of effects not available in the 1960s.

Cheer up, PZ — not all kaiju are necessarily from the sea. Maybe the supervolcano under Yellowstone will cough up a monster or two, and that would cut the distance down. Or there could be one of the comparatively rare midwest earthquakes to open up a fissure. And who knows what lives in the Great Lakes?

As for the Apple Store: frankly, I’d think corporate IT departments would be ideal kaiju chow, and they’re all Windows users. I’d recommend Linux devs, but everyone knows they never bathe.

I guess PZ is hoping the somewhat scaled down knock off by Asylum films will be Great Lake Shore or some such.
I want to see bit players from Fargo lengthily describe how rude the kaiju are, inbetween commenting on the weather.

I saw it last night and spent most of the movie trying to stifle squeals of glee. It makes absolutely no sense biologically, physically, or scientifically, but it doesn’t need to and it doesn’t try to explain it. It just “is” and so it’s easier to accept.

If it goes anything like Leatherback Turtles, then those gigantic, great things probably only really eat a f**k-ton of Jellyfish. Their normal eating habits have been disrupted, possibly by overfishing, more likely, after an invasive species, first discovered in the Cayman Trough, were taught empathy by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris and decided not to invade Earth after all.

Honestly, I will see anything that Guillermo del Toro is involved in. Hell, I read the entire Strain trilogy*, even though it wasn’t very good (and the ending was a WTF of epic proportions. I’m talking about Indiana Jones ducks into a refrigerator level of whatthefuckness).

Part of the reason why I love del Toro is because at a time when everyone in Hollywood was green screening the shit out of their special effects, he was using puppets and prosthetics and minitures. Say what you will about the Hellboy movies (and I have considerable beef with them), they are some of the most visually appealing movies that have been made in recent memory.

I assumed when the American stated 2,500 tons in the movie they were not using metric tons. Of course the difference between here in grams between the two would significantly change the output, i.e. maybe it would had a half of human.